The article I did on data walls yesterday is stimulating a great deal of conversation. I think that is awesome. Something like this should be talked about. There seems to be two general sides: those who feel data walls shame struggling students and those who think this will scar children by taking away these components of education. One person on a Facebook group said we are turning kids into wussies and our country will go down the toilet. Others feel it is a waste of a teacher’s time and energy. Both sides have some valid arguments, but I want to make a few things clear.
The pictures in the article were not taken by me. They were also intentionally blurry because student pictures are on the wall. I can’t really argue for data privacy while putting up hundreds of kids pictures up so anyone can see them. This was an academic data wall with three colors ranging from a bottom red to a top green.
I haven’t heard back from any of the Delaware superintendents or charter leaders. But I have heard from tens of thousands of teachers, in Delaware, the USA and even countries like New Zealand, Germany, and Japan. I found out states like Oregon have laws specifically banning data walls. The vast majority of teachers, well over 95%, are against these data walls. Most of them are required to do it and the mandates are serious. I will be exploring this topic much more in the coming weeks. In the meantime, I stand ready to start filing FERPA violations on Thursday night if I am not taken seriously. Let’s keep this conversation going. It is important.
There were no data walls when I was a kid. My child never experienced data walls like this. So this is very new to me.
The Season Of Myths 
Even law schools which one would think would be most cognizant of any legal implications from this practice, use anonymous numbers whenever they need to list items out of necessity, such as bar scores…. Only you know your number and can look up on public lists to see if you were successful or not.
So who is the sick individual, (obviously that one facebook commenter needs psychological evaluation immediately) who thought embarrassing kids would be beneficial to their growth and development? Business Managers get fired 100% of the time for not keeping personal material, personal. And that is with adults!. Who was this sick person who thought this was a good idea? In Delaware could it have been, one former DOE head who was so young and immature, he was running our state’s schools without ever having had children of his own?…. And who on earth was the clown stupid enough to hire him?
And what kind of cruel people sit in General Assembly and suck their big fat thumbs while this is going on?…. No oversight! No discussion! No intervention!
I used to be proud of this state…. Pete Schwartzkoph has run this fvcker straight into the fvckin’ ground!!!!!!!! What the hell is Patty Blevins suckin’ on? (No, not a dirty connation, see “thumb” reference above?) Where in the HELL is Karen Peterson? Why is John Kowalko silent while these things go on? Where is Bryan Townsend? Where is Phil Baumbach? What sickness has invaded those we elect to represent our state, our people, or best interests?
This is one sad day…
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